Deoan:Any time we use a word to describe a group of people, that word becomes associated with that group, and then becomes offensive. Retarded means slow, they are generally mentally slower, and so it becomes an apt descriptor. In 30 years the words "Special", "*insert race here-American", and "same-sex" will be offensive, because kids will start using them on the playground as insults. Can't we just, as a society, stop taking so much offense before our whole damn language is a blacklist?

skullkrusher:royone: skullkrusher: People don't like to be called something so don't call them that? Revolutionary.

Dipshiat -- may I call you dipshiat? No? Ok -- Dipshiat: this isn't about calling them retarded, it's about using the word retarded metaphorically for people like you.

like calling a straight person a "f*ggot", right? I mean, you're not actually calling a gay person a "f*ggot" so it's cool. You're just using it as a stand in for something else totally unrelated to sexuality Who can be hurt by that then?

cptjeff:havocmike: I've got a feeling that in about 30 years, I'm going to be considered an asshole because I still call objects "gay" and "retarded", even when they're clearly not capable of being either.

Circle of life, I suppose.

Gay is offensive, because you're using a word for a sexual identity that the non-bigoted don't consider a negative in a negative sense. If you said, "that's so black" as an insult, you'd get the crap beat out of you, and rightfully so.

Retarded is different- lack of intelligence is an inherently negative thing. It's already a negative word, so it's not really offensive to use it in a pejorative sense. Yeah, sucks if you're actually medically retarded, but when you use the word as an insult, you are deliberately drawing a comparison to those people who have medically addled brains. The comparison is the important part, whatever you call the brain addled.

So I guess saying black holes are so black is going to get me beat up? That is so gay.